Industrial Democracy:Progressive Movement And The Social Gospel

Industrial Democracy is a term that describes the relationship of labor and management in the progressive movement after the dreadful Pullman Strike(1994)in which the much honored Eugene Debs was incarcerated and politicians, under the influence of big business, used the courts and the military to break the union strike and push it towards antagonism and violence.Industrial Democracy was a new vision that spawned a desire for more workable solutions and peaceful resolutions on labor-management issues.

Progressive viewpoint was initially a church-based reform movement known as the Social Gospel,which rejected Social Darwinism(what the present American conservative desires).Progressives called for a new public morality(as I do now),one that recognized that great wrongs could result not solely from conscious acts,but from decisions made by faceless institutions,corporate boards,the courts,and neglectful government agencies.For labor,it meant the idea that workers and capital might acknowledge the other's necessity and that trade unions had a role in standardizing decent wages so as to alleviate the need for relief(40% of population eligible for food stamps today) or charity and some form of mutualism could replace the cyclical tradition of hurtful strikes and class antagonism.(Dray)

A valuable influence on Progressive and labor fronts was a brand of English Socialism associated with the Fabian Society which included George Bernard Shaw and sociologists Sidney and Beatrice Webb.In "Industrial Democracy",published in 1897, the Webb's described unions as entities that would check the excesses of impersonal,large-scale capitalism(unfortunately, we are under 11% today and falling). They coined the term"collective bargaining" to designate the method by which industry and labor would together rectify their relationship of inequalities.Industrial democracy would come in America to represent the idea that democratic principles and basic civil and political rights embedded in the Constitution(conservatives want to protect corporate rights) and post Civil War amendments should apply to the issues of labor and industry as much as they informed the nation's political system. Industrial democracy implied that neither side in labor disputes held all the answers,and that neither was entirely in the right. It also came to mean the inclusion in conflict resolution of not only workers and employers but legislatures,reformers, and public relief agencies,as well as scholars,the press and the public(Dray).

One direct force behind the Progressive yearning for moderate solutions was the relative popularity of Socialism.In 1900,U.S.readers could select from eight foreign-language Socialist dailies,and 262 English and 36 foreign-language Socialist weeklies.The "Appeal To Reason",published in Kansas,had a weekly circulation of 500,000.By May 1912,the nation had 1,039 Socialists in elected seats of authority with 56 mayors,160 councilmen,145 aldermen.Eugene Debs racked up 897,000 votes in the 1912 presidential election and later, while incarcerated in prison, won over a million votes in 1920.(Dray)

More to come soon from"There is Power In A Union" By Philip Dray.